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Finding Collaborators

Or People Like Me: Finding Collaborators and Friends with Complementary Interests

You’d like to find others who share your interests, or someone with expertise you lack. The university has various mechanisms for making those connections. Many units specialize in such matchmaking, around various topics. They offer expertise databases or lists, usually web-based, and host events where you can interact with others; these include social gatherings and lectures. These units are a distinctive feature of MSU life, and generally welcome new members.

Expertise databases or lists
Many units provide a list or searchable database of their members. You can often search the information by expertise, department, or other search terms.

• Community of Science collaborator search:
• ESPP environmental expertise database
• CWS members
• Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station researcher
• Office of International Development expertise database (contact Mary Anne Walker)
• Invasive species expertise search

Events
Events provide great opportunities for networking, and several units host events specifically to facilitate new collaborations.

• Central calendars for sustainability-related events
  • Environmental Science and Policy Program calendar. Tries to list all environment-related events happening on campus. The calendar is posted on the Web site and circulated by email weekly; to subscribe, contact mayaef@msu.edu.
  • Office of Campus Sustainability calendar. Lists on- and off- campus events.
  • Land Policy Institute calendar. Lists events related to land policy, on and off campus. The calendar is posted on the Web site and circulated by email weekly; subscribe online here.
  • International Studies calendar. Lists on-campus events related to the environment.

• Standing seminars and events related to sustainability

  Many units host regular events, which will likely be captured by the central calendars above. These include:

  Departments. Those hosting relevant seminar series include Agriculture, Food, and Resource Economics; Animal Science, Crop and Soil Sciences; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Entomology; Fisheries and Wildlife; Forestry; Geological Sciences; Horticulture; Kellogg Biological Station; Pathobiology and Diagnostic Investigation; and Plant Biology.

  Other units. Those with seminars often related to sustainability science include: CASID/ Women in International Development; Center for Research on College Science Teaching and Learning; Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior; and the Office of Campus Sustainability. The Office of Faculty and Organizational Development (FOD) has a new Faculty Learning Community on Sustainability. FOD also hosts Meet Michigan Traveling Seminars: an interdisciplinary one day trip to Detroit each fall and a three-day spring trip which sometimes focuses on sustainability.